Day six, again. And then I watched 'I, Daniel Blake' (6/1/19)

And then I watched I, Daniel Blake.

(Soundtrack: The Clash. Combat Rock. 'Know Your Rights'. "This is a public service announcement. With guitars.")

I finished writing about 'Life, Itself', a film filled with random tragedy and disaster leading to an uplifting conclusion and I finally watched 'I, Daniel Blake' a film that hits right to the heart of the Tory war on the working class leading to a rage that is always present but becomes more pronounced as the 90 minutes of the film take you to the death of a man who wanted nothing more than what was rightfully his.

'I, Daniel Blake' is unremittingly grim. It has to be. It's 'Cathy Come Home' for the 21st century. It's a path through one event leading inescapably to another until everything piles up and the pile is too much to bear.

It's how a heart attack can lead to an assessment that shows a man is fit for work when all medical evidence shows clearly that he is far from it. It's how the judgement of a 'medical professional' (an extremely vague term, the repetition of which only leads to the conclusion that the one thing it definitely doesn't mean is 'doctor') can remove your right to your only source of income; how that 'medical professional' can come from an American company appointed to analyse those it will never meet.

It's how you have to make the only choices left to you, the choices inflicted on you by a government whose only interest in you is removing you from the books.

It's how a young mother can be so easily forced to support her children with the only thing that is hers to sell.

And it all leads to death. It leads to a good man suffering a heart attack inflicted by his treatment by an uncaring system.

The film is bleak, relentless, disturbing, heartbreaking. It's hard to watch but necessary. It's obviously a masterpiece of social comment. You could only be unaffected if you had no heart. If you don't come away from this film utterly furious then you have no heart.

And the Tory response on Twitter is "You know it's not a documentary, don't you? Don't you?"

We know it's not a documentary. Because a documentary that refused to pull its punches in the way that 'I, Daniel Blake' refuses to pull its punches would be far, far worse.

Everything here has happened. To somebody, to a real somebody with family and friends and the need and right to be supported.

Austerity was never about financial issues. If Tory economic policy were actually based on financial issues then they wouldn't be able to justify paying a billion to the DUP to prop up their pitiful party. They wouldn't be able to justify a non-refundable £100 million on hiring ferries 'in case of' a no deal Brexit. And god, I'm definitely going to be talking about that shit in the next few days, aren't I?

Don't you love the way that £1 billion to bribe the DUP used to seem a massive amount? In a world where the same party has thrown billions at their mates for Track and Trace systems that don't work in meaningful way?

Austerity is a political issue. From day one it was the latest stage in the Conservative party's war on the working class. We have a government who are the inept entitled children of Thatcher; they hate anybody who isn't of their class. To them, our class, those called 'the working class' for a reason, are expendable. We have use until the point that we can't work for their profits any longer. And while a Labour government looked at the conditions of the working class and decided that there needed to be a system that supported those who needed help when helpless, the ruling classes, the entitled sons of Eton see only the opportunity to profit from their troubles. These people will sell the NHS in order to profit from our paying for treatment that is currently ours by right. They are the people who will set targets for sanctions and award bonuses to those who can exceed their targets. They are the party that will happily reward the creation of misery.

The problem that 'I, Daniel Blake' may have is that those of us who watch it, who want to see life portrayed in all of its dark facets, know what the film is telling us. Those truly who need to be told aren't willing to accept the film's truth.

But if the film can create rage, can create fury, can chip away at the thoughts of those who might be swayed at the next election, can make the floating voter question their choices, can show those who aren't yet convinced that any of s can be only one step away from the next step and the next step...

If it can help to convince the undecided and the apathetic that now is the time to make their voices heard against those who invented the idea that society is unnecessary then what more can you ask from art?